ABSTRACT
A spoken standard is outside the scope of this publication since people cannot be instructed as to what dialect to speak. Strict adherence to any linguistic principle in isolation from the social context of Igbo has generally been avoided. Attention has been drawn to certain spelling reforms which need to be carried out; these concern place names whose spelling should conform to the orthographic conventions of the Igbo language. Diacritics create enough problems already without the addition of unnecessary dots and dashes. For the sake of consistency and in order to avoid another artificial creation such as Union Igbo, the morphology and syntax of the literary standard have to be Central Igbo in character but the vocabulary must be pan-Igbo in spirit. A sense of direction is needed now in Igbo language studies and that sense of direction must come from somewhere.
